Florian Zemmin

Florian Zemmin is a Professor at Freie Universität Berlin's Institute of Islamic Studies, serving as Co-Director of the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS). His research focuses on Islamic reformism, Middle Eastern conceptual history, and Arabic sociologies of religion within broader debates about modernity and secularity.

• Current affiliations: Freie Universität Berlin (since 2020)
• Previous affiliations: Universität Bern (2010-2020), Universität Leipzig (2015-2021)

His research interests examine how Islamic traditions intersect with modern secular concepts through:

• Historical conceptual analysis in Arabic and Ottoman contexts
• Comparative secularisms beyond Western frameworks
• Postcolonial critiques of Eurocentric theory
• Sociological approaches to Islamic knowledge production

Current projects include:

• Das soziokulturelle Leben soziologischer Konzepte – creating a critical lexicon of 60 sociological terms in Arabic
• Global Secularity: A Sourcebook – co-editing a 7-volume series on secular formations across regions
• Arabic Sociologies of Religion – challenging Eurocentric sociology through Arabic theoretical work

Key publications address:

• Conceptual transfers in Islamic modernism
• Secularism in Islamic intellectual history
• Arabic sociology of religion
• Ottoman conceptual transformations
• Islamic responses to global social theory